Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison used part of his stage time at the LinuxWorld conference Wednesday to defend his call for a federal identity database, which he said has been widely misunderstood.

Ellison said he never actually proposed a national identification card, although many have interpreted his plan that way.

"The only thing I proposed was that the existing government IDs should be as difficult to duplicate as our credit cards," he said. "Then we should have a national directory . . . where the FBI or some national police agency keeps track of all the people that we think are bad guys."

Ellison has offered to donate Oracle software to run such a database.

If the CIA, FBI and other government databases were all put together, the Sept. 11 terrorists who were already wanted by the government would never have been able to enter the country and buy tickets for their targeted flights, Ellison said.

Ellison, who flies his own jet, said he is also disturbed by the fact that his pilot's license would be easier to duplicate than a credit card.

Ellison is not registered with a political party, but he called himself "a lifelong Democrat" on Wednesday.

He sidestepped a question about how sales are going this quarter.

"I can't talk yet. I think our CFO said a couple days ago we're on track to make the quarter. That's our current public statement," Ellison said.

Ellison appeared at LinuxWorld at San Francisco's Moscone Center to tout the Linux versions of his company's software, which make it possible to run Oracle databases and applications on clusters of computers all running the open-source Linux operating system.

Oracle has increasingly embraced Linux in recent years, a move that dovetails with Ellison's open disdain for Microsoft -- a feeling many Linux users share.

"By the end of this calendar year, literally all our Oracle mid-tier machines will be running Linux," Ellison said.